


A Garden Full of Saints and Sinners

by MissVictoriaRose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Gen, Magical Petunia Dursley, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissVictoriaRose/pseuds/MissVictoriaRose
Summary: “Says it’s from Hogwarts. It's got your name on it,” dad said to Lily.‘Please, I don’t want to lose my sister. Not again,’ Petunia begged silently.“Hogwarts?” mum asked, sounding bemused as she looked over dad’s shoulder to read the address on the letter.“Look,” her father said, pointing to the letter left on the window sill. “There is a second letter.”Oh, no.





	1. Chapter 1

Petunia Dursley stood in her living room, looking out the front window. The white lace curtains hung in just a way that let her peak out on to the empty street. She watches as the light breeze, brought in by the darkening clouds, whipped against the prim Red Buckeye trees in her front yard. She watches as the same breeze ran over her prized Hydrangeas. Petunia knew it was going to be a long day. She knew due to the dark clouds gathering before the sun even started to show. It was a sign, a bad omen, if she ever believed in such thing. She knew 

But even with the glum staring back at her, the front yard was still an easier sight to take than the one at her back. So, Petunia stood there, with a cooling coffee in her hand, and watched the empty street. 

It was an easier thing to stomach than her empty home.

Her every memory, every piece of furniture, every little knick knack packed away in to boxes. Each one color labeled coordinated with the rooms of the new house. Each and every box ready for the moving van to arrive at 8am sharp. The house was spotless, not a thing on the walls and the floors had been vacuumed twice since everything was packed. Yet, that level of perfection did nothing to sooth Petunia’s chaotic mind. 

For twenty years this house had been her refuge from the world. Within these walls was where Petunia raised her son, where she cooked dinner, and kissed her husband goodnight as she laid down next to him. She had made this house a home.

And now it was a home she is forced to flee from. The home she had to leave in order to keep her family safe. Her eyes drifted to the hallway.

There are so many things Petunia Dursley would have done differently.

"If they think for a moment that you know where I'm going, they'll stop at nothing to get that knowledge from you," her nephew said. His voice was rough and a little too hallow for how young his face looked. 

He was a tall boy. He looked so much like his father did at that age, but this boy smiled so much less. Yet, here he stood, in Dudley’s hand-me-down rags, giving her a misplaced warning.

“You think I don't know what their capable of?" Petunia asked, “She was my sister. She was my sister and they took her from me.“

It was the truth. Lily Potter was born Lily Evans. The youngest daughter of the Evan’s family. Petunia’s only sister. For a while there, back many decades ago, they were thick as thieves. They were only a year a part, and that had never meant anything to either sister. They shared secrets and toys. They used to shoot looks at each other across the dinner table that spoke volumes. 

Lily Potter, though, was a sister lost long ago. There was a moment, a single moment, that Petunia could blame everything on. It was the moment Petunia knew she had lost her sister, her best friend. They were at the park playing, like they usually were. Then came this boy. He was dressed in dark clothes that looked to be a few days past needing a good wash, and his hair was even dirtier. He had called Lily a witch. He claimed to be able to do the same freaky things Lily could do. He tempted the poor girl with the one thing she was never good a refusing—a way to satisfy curiosity. He told her he knew. Petunia watched, as Lily looked from the boy to her, then back to the boy. Because it was in the moment, Petunia knew Lily would never let that freakish ability go.

Look where it got her, too soon laid to rest. Look where it got her son—

An engine growls from the drive way. It was only then, Petunia realized she had been staring at her nephew without saying anything to the boy.

Harry, the nephew—Petunia sister's son—nodded his head in the most civil goodbye they could have had. Neither said anything.

There were too many things say, too many apologies that time had run out on, too many truths and family secrets that never got a chance to come out.

The car is running front, waiting for her. But Petunia didn’t move. She didn’t look away from the boy that had been dropped off on her doorstep all those years ago.

Those eyes, those broken green eyes, begging for something she never learned, never understood, how to give. How was she suppose to treat him? How was she suppose to love him, when it couldn’t have ended up any different that where they were now?

He was Lily's son, an orphan dropped off on her door step all those years ago. He was Lily’s son. There was no way he would end up unlike her. There was no way he would end up with any different of a fate. That world of hers, the one she choose, was toxic. Yet, he was still just a boy—a baby. He deserved to be with his own kind. He deserved his mother. He deserved Lily, and her unwavering love. How could they just leave him on her doorstep and think everything was going to work out? How could she ever have come close to replacing Lily? Looking at those haunted eyes now, those eyes that showed every fear the boy had, how could she not have even tried?

"I'm sorry," Petunia whispered. Sorry, it was such an empty word that meant nothing now. It did nothing to say, but she needed to. She needed to say something, anything, that let the boy know that she knows she failed him, that everyone failed him.

"Me too," he answered. He stayed looking at her. He reminded her of a young deer—steady on his legs, but still fragile.

A bright light flashed out of the corner of her eye. Petunia turned her head to look out the window, just in time for the family car to explode before her eyes. She could hear Dudley screaming for his father. Then, it all went silent. That scared her more than the screams.

Petunia turned away, dashing towards the front door. She dodged the boy, and slammed her shoulder on the doorway between the living room and the hallway. She made it to the door, and yanked it open. Only for a hand to slam it shut in her face. She watched as the same hand twisted the bolt lock. Scarred arms wrapped around her and pulled her back towards the living room.

There was a yell of a word in a language she didn’t know. The front door to her house blew open and off it’s hinges. It landed, burnt and cracked, in the hallway. Petunia’s pretty sure she screamed.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" a voice, cruel and hard, bellowed from the doorway. 

Then, another, "Going somewhere, Potter?"

"How—" the boy’s voice cracked as black cloaked figures swarm the empty room, appearing out of thin air. "How did you find me?"

"Really, it was too easy," a man hissed as he strolled into the living room. He wasn’t cloaked like the others. He didn’t wear the white mask all the others had on. Petunia could see his face, a pale, freakish grey color. He bald, with a disfigured nose that looked more serpentine than broken. 

"Voldemort," her nephew snarled. 

Petunia knew that name. She knew it as well as she knew her nephew’s name. It was a single word that haunted her nightmares. A name, attached to a man, who would show up one day to finish was he started. She knew that name, and she knew what it meant for him to be here, in her home, near her nephew.

"Don't you dare say his name!" a cloaked figure yelled. “You aren’t worthy to say it.”

The boy shifted closer to her. Petunia didn’t know if it was for her safety or his.

"Quaint little place," Voldemort said, looking around the house.

"What do you want?" Petunia asked.

He looked at her. His beady red eyes honing in on her, as he cocked his head to the side. 

“Harry Potter dead at my feet,” he said, “by my hand."

Lily, help me, Petunia begged silently. She moved, a settle shift of her weight, so that she stood between her orphaned nephew and the monster that killed his parents.

"You? A muggle, think you can stop me?" he laughed, so did a few of the other cloaks surrounding them

"I'm willing to try,” Petunia said. “How did it work the last time someone gave their life for his?”

Petunia felt her nephew’s hand wrap tight around her arm.

“Kill her,” the monster ordered.

Around the room, wands were pulled out and aimed at them. But multiple pops, of other wizards arriving, interrupted whatever the cloaks were going to do to her.

The boy pulled them to the ground, as he yanked a blanket over them. At the same time, the cloaks yelled, and more lights flashed. 

Lily, save me, Petunia begged. With one hand, she grabbed the blanket, keeping it in place over them. With the other arm, she pulled the boy closer to her, and directed him towards the kitchen. Together they waddled in a very undignified manner towards the possible cover behind granite counters and stainless steal appliances. 

“Find them!” The monster ordered.

Lights exploded the wooden cabinets as the duo passed. Petunia shoved the boy against the wall, as she crouched down next to him. There was a long row of cabinets and a state of the art dishwasher between them and the light show. 

More voices yelled. More lights flashed. Someone broke the light hanging from the ceiling in the living room, plunging everyone into darkness. Petunia heard a heavy thump come from in front of her. She stared at the spot too long, allowing her eyes to make out the shape, of one of the cloaked freaks that had collapsed dead, from the shadows in the dark and the blanket that was still draped over her and the boy. The body laid less than a meter from them.

The boy was shaking as he sat next to her. Petunia was unable to focus on a single thing that she could do, or say to make this better. They were going to die. This was it, and all she could focus on was how much she wished she still had Lily.

A light hit the fridge, demolishing more than half of it. The fighting was getting closer. Petunia grabbed the boy. She dragged him, on hands and knees, towards the mudroom at the end of the kitchen. She pulled him through the door and crouched down against the wall.

"Survive this," Petunia order the boy, shaking the arm she still had a death grip on. "Do you hear me? You survive this. You survive this war, and you grow old and you be happy. You get out of this, and you make it worth it. Promise me, Harry. You will live a long and happy life.”

"We're getting out of this together," the boy told her. 

His voice didn’t waver. It didn’t crack like some placating lies. The boy believed what he was saying. He truly thought they would both make it out of this. 

There was a tapping on the back door. Both of them look over to see it fling open. A cloaked figure stood there, with his wand out and looking for trouble.

Petunia pushed her nephew behind her. The cloaked figure pulled his hood down, revealing a familiar face.

“You,” Petunia snarled.

At the same time, the boy asked, “Snape?”

Petunia looked him up and down. He had the same greasy hair and unfortunate hooked nose. He wore the same black cloak as the other intruders wore.

“I knew you were bad news,” Petunia told him.

A light flew through the open door to the kitchen. It burnt a hole in the wall opposite of the door.

“And still you know nothing,” Snape growled back at her. “Potter, we are leaving.”

“I’m not going with you,” her nephew said.

More lights flew through the open door way.

“No. I have a portkey that will take you to safety,” Snape explained.

The only problem with the traitor’s plan was that Harry had to cross pass the open doorway. The same open doorway that loose lights keep flying through.

Lily, protect me, Petunia begged. She grabbed a hold on Harry’s shirt and pulled him to the other side of her, so that she was between him and whatever was on the other side of the doorway. 

More shouting echoed throughout the hollow house, more lights flashed and burned the walls.

"Harry Potter!" Voldemort hissed. "This is where you die."

Petunia yanked Harry up with her, throwing him towards Snape as she stood tall in front of the doorway.

A green light left Voldemort’s wand.

For all her failures, for all she would do differently, Petunia Dursley would give anything for a second chance at her life. Lily forgive me, Petunia begged.

The green light hit dead center of her chest. She heard a loud pop, and Voldemort’s yelling. A numbness spread from her heart. It traveled down her limbs and up her neck. It felt like sinking in to a cold pool on a hot summer day. Her sight faded in a light grey color. The stale smell of her house was replaced with the floral scents of her childhood bedroom. Her arms stretch out against the soft cotton fabric of her bedsheets from when she was growing up. Birds chirp on the windowsill. The morning light is peaking through the pink window curtains. A freckled arm wraps around her waist, and a head of red curls is burrowed against her neck.

"You're safe," Lily whispered, squeezing Petunia tight, “It was just a nightmare. You’re safe."


	2. Chapter 2

"You're safe," Lily whispered, squeezing Petunia tight, “It was just a nightmare. You’re safe."

Lily was here. Petunia's brain took a moment to catch up. Lily was here, and she was real, and she was hugging.

“How?” Petunia's voice cracked on the word. She took another glance around the room trying to figure out --trying to figure out what/how/why/when -anything that would answer something.

Well, Petunia could guess how. She could probably come up with a very plausible reason of how she came to be sitting in her childhood bedroom with a painfully young Lily curled up next to her. Yes, Petunia could guess. But, it's a ridiculous answer. Assuredly not one she would ever admit could be possible. No, because Petunia was utterly normal. Things like magical time travel didn’t happen to normal people.

Even though waking up three decades in the past with a dead sister curled around you was anything other than normal.

Petunia was still a normal person, dammit.

“How did I know? You were tossing and turning like a pig under a blanket,” Lily joked. “Come on! mum’s making pancakes for us!”

Lily jumped up from the bed and was out the door before Petunia could string another thought together, which left Petunia alone in her childhood room.

She looked around with a critical eye. It was exactly the same from what she remembered. It was perfect. White furniture strategically placed around the room for optimal space, and all of her clothes organized first by style and then by color in her wardrobe. There was not a single thing out of place in the whole room.

It was both a comfort of normalcy and a painful reminder of what kind of person she was, of what kind of person she ended up becoming. It’s all here, everything from her favorite yellow dress and cardigan she wore, would wear, to enroll at Queen Anne’s Preparatory the day after the brush-off rejection letter came from Albus Dumbledore. The hairbrush she threw at Lily in a fit of jealous teenage rage laid innocently on her vanity in front of the mirror. The same mirror she would sit in front of day after day, making sure she looked flawless, normal.

The mirror that now showed her looking just as young as Lily.

“Petunia!” her mother yelled from the kitchen, “Breakfast is ready!”

Petunia ignored the weirdness of being addressed by a woman whose funeral she had already attended. Petunia ignored that she was standing in a house she had ruthlessly sold after her parents died, without ever consulting Lily about the matter. Petunia ignored that she looked to be no older than eleven. She lacked the regrettably short haircut she got the day of Lily’s birthday, just a few hours after the damned letter showed up.

Petunia ignored how real it felt, to walk down the stairs and see old pictures of her family all together, to see her father smile at her as she walked into the kitchen, and Lily was bouncing in her seat at the table excited for pancakes. Petunia did what she did best. She ignored it all.

“Finally, sleepyhead,” Lily commented as Petunia sit down in her seat at the kitchen table.

“Oh, hush you!” their mother admonished.

She was standing in front of the stove, wearing her favorite apron. She had a smudge of pancake mix in her hair, and a bright smile on her face.

“It’s the weekend,” their dad said in between sips of coffee, “Lily-love, us sane folk like to sleep in.”

He was reading the newspaper, as he always did every Sunday morning. He was a man of habit. He did the same thing week in and week out, never changing. It lingered from his military days and rubbed off on Petunia. She used to take pride in it.

Lily’s uniqueness hit him almost as hard as it hit Petunia, for no grander reason then it just made life unpredictable. Ever since the letter, he never really knew how to act towards Lily. That hurt Lily more than any words ever could.

“And what does that make the rest of us early risers?” mum asked with eyes full of mirth as she fluttered around the kitchen.

There was a grace to her that a woman could only possess when she well and truly felt at home in her kitchen. Like a ballerina, she danced between the stove and the table plating pancakes and dropping kisses on foreheads as she went.

“Wonderful company,” dad answered, kissing mum on the lips as she passed him.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Petunia said.

“Yes, thanks, mum,” Lily echoed.

It was as delicious as Petunia remembered it, warm and fluffy. She and her father both cover their pancakes with powdered sugar. Her mother and Lily eat them plain.

A comfortable silence settles over the table. Everyone focused on food. Petunia savored the moment, trying to savor a meal with her whole family again, after so, so long.

Or, at least, she tried to. Petunia couldn't shake the feeling that the pancakes were glaring up at her. Even the sugar and the chocolate chips knew how cruel she had turned out to be. That she didn’t deserve this weird ‘last meal with a sorely missed family’ thing that was going on. They tasted guiltier than usual.

There had been a green light, and then opening her eyes in her childhood bedroom. Petunia didn't know much about her sister's world, but she knew enough to know nothing good came from a flying green light.

There is a knock at the door. No, it was a tapping on the window.

The moment clicked into place for her. This had to be purgatory, Petunia thought to herself. She trembled as she took in the sight at the kitchen window.

“Is that a bird?” her father asked staring at the window.

“An owl, I believe,” her mother said absentmindedly as her father got up and walked over to the bird at the window.

Petunia's knuckles turn white as she clutched the arms of her chair.

“It’s carrying a letter,” dad said as the window opened and the bird's clucking filled the kitchen.

Petunia's breathing came in a little quicker, and her vision filled with tiny white dots.

‘Not again. Not again. Not again,’ Petunia chanted to herself over and over again.

Petunia already knew what the letter said. She already knew what was going to happen when Lily read it. She already knew how this story played out, how it ended.

“Who’s it for?” Lily asked.

“An owl delivered a letter?” mum asked at the same time.

She was frozen in place, watching as the letter moved in her father’s hand/

“Says it’s from Hogwarts. It's got your name on it,” he said to Lily.

‘Please, I don’t want to lose my sister,’ Petunia begged silently. ‘Not again. Not again. Not again. Please, don’t send her where I can’t follow. I just want to keep her safe, to keep her alive.’

“Hogwarts?” mum asked, sounding bemused as she looked over dad’s shoulder to read the address on the letter.

“Oh, look,” her father said, pointing to the letter left on the window sill. “There is a second letter.”

Oh, no.


End file.
